Encryption of data at rest is becoming more and more crucial in today’s world. This tip is aimed to help businesses that do not have the budgets or resources to purchase hardware encryption tools or to upgrade to SQL 2008. It basically illustrates how to achive transparent file encryption with SQL 2005 or SQL 2000.
2009-11-27
4,390 reads
It has never been so important to enhance your employability as it is today. Job security can never be taken for granted. Employability, increasing your professional value, means far more than just collecting qualifications, as Dr Masha Petrova explains: It also involves communicating, writing, and participating in communities.
2009-11-27
2,850 reads
The Query Optimizer gets it right most of the time, but occasionally it chooses a plan that isn't the best possible. You can give the Query Optimiser a better idea by using Table, Join and Query hints. These come with a risk: Any choices you force on the Optimizer by using hints can turn out to be entirely wrong as the database changes with the addition of data over time. Grant Fritchey, in a chapter from his highly acclaimed book, explains further.
2009-11-25
3,275 reads
I have to deploy my SQL Server Analysis Services project to a test server then to a production server after testing is completed. For both of these deployments I need to provide an installation program. I am not allowed to access either of these servers. For my own testing I can deploy my project using Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) and this works great. How can I create an installer that my IT team can use to perform the deployment?
2009-11-25
2,137 reads
The installation process for SQL Server 2008 has many different options. These options allow you more control over your SQL Server Instance configuration. Having this additional control allows you to set up your SQL Server 2008 instances out of the box with the appropriate configuration, like directory structure, accounts, etc. In this article I'll walk you through the SQL Server installation process.
2009-11-24
3,680 reads
I want to institute a high availability solution for SQL Server with no downtime. I am planning on using Microsoft clustering, but I have been told that in the event that the cluster moves the SQL Server from one physical server to another, that there is some downtime. Why is this so?
2009-11-24
4,324 reads
Windows Azure and Azure Storage offers a new scalable and robust architecture that borrows much from the common feel of ASP.NET applications but brings plenty of new features as well. This paradigm shift from what has become traditional client-server architecture will offer new options to developers and headaches alike. While "the cloud" is not intended to be the answer for all applications and situations, it can only be a potential answer (another "tool" in the proverbial "tool belt") if you have at minimum a general understanding.
2009-11-23
1,893 reads
The Transaction Log provides the means by which either the complete set of tasks of a database transaction are performed or none of them are. It ensures that , via rollback, only valid data is written out to the database, and it allows transactions to be played back to recreate the system state right before a failure. Robert Sheldon explains the various basic tasks involved in managing the transaction log.
2009-11-23
4,186 reads
or our first feature on working DBAs and their lives, we selected Grant Fritchey, the self-styled Scary DBA, who has been so successful in the past year with his books and presentations. How does he manage to pack so much into his life? We sent Richard Morris to find out.
2009-11-20
3,936 reads
If your company needs to go through a SOX (Sarbanes–Oxley) audit or any security audit, the DBA has to provide security information to them. If you have purchased third party tools to provide this information that is great. If you don't have third party tools and need to go through many servers to provide this information it can be a hassle and very time consuming. So I put together a script to generate a report that I could just review. The script generates a report of all elevated level accounts and any possible security holes.
2009-11-20
3,602 reads
By Steve Jones
A customer was asking about tracking logins and logouts in Redgate Monitor. We don’t...
By Brian Kelley
Every year, the South Carolina State Internal Auditors Association and the South Carolina Midlands...
Data Céilí 2026 Call for Speakers is now live! Data Céilí (pronounced kay-lee), is...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item T-SQL in SQL Server 2025:...
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Comments posted to this topic are about the item UNISTR Basics
What does this code return in SQL Server 2025+? (assume the database has an appropriate collation)
SELECT UNISTR('Hello 4E16754C') AS 'A Classic';
A: 
B: 
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